When we say pests, it's something that annoys the person that lives in the home, okay? We service for all pests. You know, ants, mice, rats, snakes, I can go on and on and on. Anytime that there's heat and moisture, roaches are going to be there. You know, until you're on a table and there's a mouse running around and you're screaming, that's when you call. And like I said, it was 2 a.m. because that's when the rats come out, right? Patty Pierleonardi, owner of Pest Management Services. From a small town Maryland upbringing to building an eight-figure company and launching Firefly Cellars Winery, Patty proves success isn't a straight line. Because to you, it could be two. To me, it might be 50. And all of the awful things that roaches do when you let them live in your home, like possibly create asthma, and COVID happened. So now they're all in lockdown. So she's like, get me out of the house. It spans the globe like a super high school. Enter the Elvis. Ready. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. It's not over. until I win. The Living Your Legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. That's extraordinary. The impossible. Oh, that is sensational. To open. Chicago with the lead. You said Paul is the fastest man on the planet. You can live your dream. welcome back to another episode of the living your legacy podcast the women in power edition for inside success i am ray gutierrez and joining me is patty pierre leonardi the founder of firefly sellers welcome to inside success how do you feel thank you feeling great um i know i know we're running a little behind this is all real time but we're about to film your episode of women in power How does that feel? You don't even know. It's a little bizarre. It's a little bizarre. It's fun. It's exciting. It's a lot of different emotions going into this. Very new for me. Are you often doing podcasts? Are you often on camera? I've been on camera quite a few times. Podcasts, not as many. So this is, like I said, this is real exciting. I'm glad to be here and excited to share my story. Cool. So before we get into Firefly Cellars, I'm very curious about this pest control company. Okay. What kind of pests are you controlling? Is it men? Yes. No, it can be. It can be. It's a little of everything, honestly. It's pests, residential and commercial pests. When we say pests, it's something that annoys the person that lives in the home. Okay. To you, a pest could be a mouse. To me, a pest could be a snake. So it depends on the person, but we service for all pests. Okay. You know, ants, pests, everything. roaches mice rats snakes i can go on and on and on right on all the stuff that you love right all the stuff that i love there's definitely there's been a roach pandemic in miami ever since i've lived here because i was born here so how does one defeat roaches in miami like what are give me some quick tips well the 30 second montage let's talk about roaches for a minute like they don't die i know that was it that's it period they just don't die so you're always going to be in business exactly exactly roaches have been here forever and they're going to always be here so we just try to control it i see so how does one control and manage roach infestations i'm almost certain that i've got a micro one in my kitchen because i have got this fridge and i know they live in it in the back and i've always tried to control it i keep it away i'm about to dump this fridge but before i dump this fridge what can i do is it the paste is it the spray Is it just prayer? Crying? How can I control these pests? All of it. Cry and then go get the actual product. Got it. I mean, for roaches in a kitchen, you know why it's behind your refrigerator, right? Because of the moisture? The heat. The heat? Yes. Oh. Put the two together. Anytime that there's heat and moisture, roaches are going to be there. Right on. I love it. Yes. Really? Really. That's good to know. Really. Can I just go ahead and buy the Home Depot and get the... You can. Of course you can. Of course you can. I should call you. But yeah, you want to use the product that you can't get at Home Depot. Ah, almost like a hair salon. Correct. Good stuff is at the... Absolutely. So when I call you and I go, all right, give me the good stuff, what happens next? Well, then we send somebody out and they actually treat it for you. They do an inspection. They're going to find them behind your refrigerator. They're going to talk to you about all the mess that you have in your home to bring the roaches in and why you're leaving food out. And why aren't you cleaning up when you're supposed to? And all of the awful things that roaches do when you let them live in your home like possibly create asthma Did you know that No I did not know that Yeah Oh gosh No no no Yeah Now you're really scared, aren't you? I'm a little, a little frightened. Yes. But not by, not by the, but not by the mere fact of these things, but we also have a, not, but we don't have a mice infestation, but there's definitely a path that I'm like, well, we're going to see another one in a couple of weeks because there's this path and they're exploring and I've yet to close it up because I've yet to call you. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like you need a double. Yeah. Why do people take so freaking long to go A, to the doctor and B, get their house check of pests? Well, I mean, it's not on that list. You know, it's not on that list of priorities until it is. Right on. You know, until you're on a table and there's a mouse running around and you're screaming, that's when you call. That's when we get the call. So it's more of a reactive thing, more than a proactive thing. Unless, you know, you're a commercial property because we also service those. Right, right. And you have a restaurant, then you have to be a little more proactive. Oh, yeah. When you're a restaurant, that's a business. Absolutely. Because then you're dealing with the chef's reputation at that point. Yep. And the city. So you don't want to wait until that person takes that video of they're running across the dining room. Yeah, yeah. You want to make sure that doesn't happen. Yeah, that's a ratatouille video you don't want. They're not that cute either. No, no, no. Especially the ones that hold on to your hair in control. We don't want those. No. So how does one graduate to Firefly Cellars? Crazy, right? I know. I know. We actually purchased it over COVID because, you know. Because that's what you do during COVID. That's what I say. That's what I say. That's what you do during COVID. I say the same thing. That's what you do. So, you know, I had this great business model and vision with a pest control company. So I said, why not take that same model, that same vision, and just put it into something else. Right on. And it just happened to be a winery. My daughter at the time had just had her third, my third granddaughter. Oh, congratulations. And COVID happened. So now they're all in lockdown. So she's like, get me out of the house. So I took her to an open house for a winery. I was like, yeah, let's just go look. And that's what we did. And at that point, we couldn't really talk. We were masked up, you know, all of that. And then when we got into the car and took our masks off, we both were like, oh my gosh, we can do this and we can set up a B&B and we can make our own labels. And we were basically saying exactly the same thing. So we're like, oh my God, we need to do this, don't we? Like, we're really going to do this. and before you know it I signed and then went home and said look what I did and here we are. When did the real work begin? Oh immediately. We renovated for eight months. Created the labels, had a winemaker, bought the grapes. It's all Virginia grapes. It's a lot. Open to B&B an event space, three event spaces. I was just going to say it's cool that you're cultivating a tribe like a community within. It's almost like Coppola did Well, he doesn't own it anymore. But all the great weddings would be at the Coppola Vineyard in the Bay. What community are you building? What's happening now? Well, there are three different event spaces. You know, we call them the cottage, the cabin, the vine, the barn. Really simple names. But they're all very different. That's what I love about this property is it's small, but it's impactful. There's a lot you can do on it. We do micro weddings. There's really anything. That's the beauty of it. We can do whatever we want. Right on. Yeah. I keep hearing ranches and farms coming up in our conversation throughout the entire day because I kind of want to get the hell out of Miami and buy a farm. Sounds like you need to if you have a roach problem. Yeah. It's like, well, you all can have the house. Right. Exactly. Leave, get it fogged and go. Yeah. Yeah. What does make a stellar vineyard, a winery? Like what makes good wine? Well, it depends. It depends on the person that's going to the winery. A lot of people go for the view because there are some great views at some great wineries. You get to oversee the vineyard. It's beautiful. You sit there. You breathe. You take in the air. A lot of people like that. Other people like to go for music. There's always live music. Of course, people go for the wine. But if you don't have the beautiful view and you have great wine, people will come back. Oh, yeah. For sure. There's also a food aspect to that, which we're working on that. We do charcuterie boards, but food's a big deal. You know, if you take your friends to a winery and there's nothing to eat, it's like, because, you know, you always have the one guy that doesn't drink wine. So it's like, what do I do? You know what am I doing here I just tagging along with you guys but there no food So you have to kind of balance out what everybody likes For sure Everybody likes food Everybody likes wine clearly or they wouldn come And you know it has to look nice and it has to be cozy and it has to feel good when you're there. It's a feel good place. How often it is just a party shuttle, like just like wheeze it on in with like a, like a bridesmaids and everyone's like, Oh, I love those. Those are the best. Those are the best. Yeah. When they just come off the bus, you know, they've been to three already and they roll into the barn and they all have their sashes on. It's a party. Yeah, that's great. That's a good thing. Because you're facilitating that at that point in experience, which is essentially what you've created here. That is exactly what we're trying to do. It does work is when I would do this out in the Bay Area and we'd go up north to the vineyards and we'd jump in the bus and we'd get smashed. We would drink and we'd go through the whole spiel. but it is kind of tribal. It's like we've ascended, we've made it. You can have that moment to just look out and have that glass of wine and really taste it. Right. What are folks really tasting in your wine? What's happening here and here when they're having a glass of your energy? Well, I'll tell you, this is what we do with our wine. Like I said, it's all Virginia grapes. We have 12 varietals, red, white, sparklings, rosé. We have all of it, blanc de blancs. And what we do, because again, And I was in the pest control industry, right? So when our winemakers started making the wine, we just said, you know, let us taste it, of course. And we'll give you our input. Not that we're any like special wine person. We're new to this. But that's kind of what we did. And if I like it, then it's like, eh, let's go with it. And that's just what we've done. And it seems to work, even though, you know, I'm just winging it, honestly. My daughter is a little more of a wino than me, which is great because she has a little more input. But so far, so good. We have some great wine. Our Cab Franc won the Governor's Cup year two. Right on. We're not doing too bad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Congratulations. What's the day-to-day hustle like now? Do you have a team? Is it within the family? A staff? How large is your operation? Well, my daughter basically runs the show. Awesome. But we do have a staff. It's mostly part-time college students. Stay-at-home moms. You know, that kind of thing. But, I mean, it's pretty simple. You know, we come in, we open up, we stock the wine, we make the boards. You know, there could be a party going on in the cabin that day. There could be a birthday party in the cabin. There could be a party, a sports watching football party in the jar. It's another space that we have. There's a new space called the Vine that we're trying to figure out what we're going to do with that. Just to create another choice for people that come on the property and want to have something. um it's every day is different it really is different you just don't know what you're going to get because a wine bus could show up right or or a group a family group of 15 could just show up um we've had sports athletes show up because we were big into the partnerships with the professional sports teams so that's happened where they just randomly show up and they're like oh you know we have to make room for that so it's a day by day you just don't know what you're going to get, which is kind of fun. What's your next step? We've gone from pest control to, to, to wine. What's next for you? Hello, I'm here. Are you a brand? Would you consider yourself a brand? Firefly sellers? No, you as an individual, a person. Of course, I'm Pest Patty. Yeah. Cool. So talk about yourself as a brand and what, what, how you've evolved to you knowing that you now have control and you're in, in your light is, is, is, is lighting all these other projects and, folks that you're touching? Well, the brand was an accident. Okay. It started as an email. And then what happened, um, in the pest control business is, you know, being the control freak that I am, that I had to make sure that when our customers were getting any kind of correspondence over email, that it came from me. Why not? You know, if they want to contact me, they can, which I'm, I'm really different in how I do things in my industry. So, you know, there's presidents, owners of other pest control companies that want absolutely nothing to do with the customers, right? Like you handle it, you deal with it. I'm the total opposite. I'm like, call me. Yeah. Yes. Wow. So that's kind of what started with Pest Patty email. Got it. So then what happened is I started going to some of these events and I would run into some of our clients and they like wait a minute did you say you Patty with with this pest control company I like yes you a pest patty Wow Oh my God You a pest patty I didn't know that was real. I'm like, yeah. And it just kind of started there and escalated. There were a couple, you know, commercials that we had on TV with some sports teams that said pest patty. And so then I started getting calls and emails for a pest patty. Well, yeah, it's just, it's crazy because folks don't really correlate someone like you with pest control. That's what I hear. I hear that quite often. Which is great for you, obviously. I'm sure it's great for business. So when they finally get a hold of you and you're onboarding a client, what is the difference between what you present versus the wannabes or your competition? Oh, so many things. Okay. I am who I am. So I'm as authentic as you get. And I'm going to tell it like it is. So for example, um, I went to a restaurant and at 2am because they said they had a rat infestation and two other pest control company people showed up to do the bid as well. And like I said, it was 2am cause that's when the rats come out. Right. So I wanted to go see what kind of infestation this was because to you, it could be two. To me, it might be 50. You know, which one is it? What does the uniform look like working for you? I'm assuming you're not wearing the hat and this is it. You showed up looking like this at 2 a.m. and the other guy showed up with their hand. Wow, it's leggings usually because I'm switching leggings off every time. I can dress it up, dress it down. Who knows what I'm doing? But the other guys show up in the ties. All the boring male stuff. But of the three of us, who do you think went down and saw the rats? Of course I did. You partied with the rats before you killed them. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I went down there running over my shoes. I'm like, yep, yeah, it's an event station, all right? Oh, shit, we're going to die in style. Exactly. Let's do it. That's how rats are partying. The grandfather of all rats was like right there in the corner, eyeing me down like I'm in a space. The rat king of all kings. Oh, they're all tails. They're all tails. Oh, we're all jumping on this one. Exactly. It was just like that. Yeah. But the other two men wouldn't even go down. They're just like, oh, we got this. We'll correct the contract. So when I came back up the steps out of the dungeon of rats, they basically shook my hand and said you got it that's amazing how much of that resilience and main character energy do you carry every day of your life well like I said this is me so it is what it is I don't know any other way I can't wait to learn more about your Women in Power episode I'm sure you're all jacked up and powerful now what are we going to learn more about you and your episode in just a couple moments And I forget I've already asked this and I apologize. That's okay. I think, wow, you're going to learn why I am this way. Cool. Hell yeah. You know, why am I like this? What drives me to do what I do? Cool. The craziness that I do. You know, I didn't, I wasn't born and said, oh, I'm going to go kill bugs. Like that wasn't a thing. So, you know, you never know what you're going to get into. And there's always a reason for everything. And, you know, relationships are huge. So that's a key point in the woman in power episode is all about relationships. and how to treat people kind. And things happen when you do that. Good things happen. Right on. It comes right back to you. Well, Pest Patty, how can people find you? How can people work with you? PestPatty20 at gmail.com. It's a start and a finish. Do you got a .com? Do you have a social media, a TikTok, a LinkedIn? Well, Firefly Cellars, of course. Firefly Cellars, cool. Yes, you can get me to that. So there's Firefly Cellars, Pest Patty. What else are we dropping? Wow, there's pink hydration water as well. Holy moly. We'll leave that for the actual episode. That'll be for another time. Well, Pest Patty, it was such an honor to share this time and space with you. Thank you. Can you just look into this camera and just give me the list of montages of things that you're working on? Of the three things? Of everything, including just like, this is Pest Patty and I do this and I do that and I'm awesome. Just give us the list of everything that you do. I'm Pest Patty. I sold a pest control company. I sold a water company and now I own Firefly Cellars and I'm awesome. And that is a woman in power. With that, concludes another episode of Living Your Legacy episode. For Inside Success, I'm Ray Gutierrez, and this is Pest Patti.
